Voices in the Bible

The Bible is different than the Koran or the Book of Mormon. Just not in the way you are probably supposing. According to Muhammad, God spoke to him through the angel Gabriel over the course of 23 years, dictating the various parts of the Koran. Muhammad isn’t the author, nor Gabriel; God is the author....

How a Normal Person Moves Toward Evil

The first and most basic step toward doing something evil is when you consider another person as something less. Less godly. Less good. Less human. When Europeans decided Africans with their superstitious religions were less godly, with their cannibilistic ways were less good, with their primitive jungle...

Las Vegas and Our Culture of Violence

Note: This is adapted from a 2015 article I wrote after the massacre of nine African-Americans in a Charleston church. Sadly, I didn’t have to change much to adapt it. Once again we are reeling in the aftermath of another mass killing, the worst one in U.S. history. As usual, we also have to listen to the...

Free to be Your Best Self

I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. There are passages in the Bible that are hard to understand. We puzzle over them, read Bible commentaries, listen to Christian leaders we trust talk about them, and still we end up scratching our heads. This is...